…to the chagrin of true arbiters of taste

Main menu

Debauchery ‘R’ Us: The Wolf of Wall Street

Early in the bacchanalia that is Martin Scorsese’s latest The Wolf of Wall Street, titular “wolf” Jordan Belfort – portrayed with a Jack Nicholson-esque level of pop-eyed cuckoo by exceptional Leonardo DiCaprio – describes his unique work philosophy thusly: “Give ’em to me young, hungry, and stupid.”

And that about sums up the movie.

There’s been a lot of haughty debate-team hyperbole about how the film is a morality tale for our ages or how it is a disgustingly self-indulgent, overly long mess.

Yup. It’s both.

But the pundits are missing a crucial point. This film is neither celebration nor indictment of the participants in a mid-90s scheme to debunk both rich and poor via the proliferation of something called “penny stocks.” Rather, the film is a sly comic valentine to society’s scruffy, scrappy sweathogs who subsist on the scraps handed down by a byzantine capitalist superstructure … and who one day figure out how to out-crook the crooks running the show.

I enjoyed myself greatly, but I found myself looking at my watch … a lot. It wasn’t that the movie is boring. Not. At. All. But it’s just so much of the same, and the narrative heft doesn’t really necessitate a three hour running time. (For a similar and more expeditiously told version of a comparable tale, check out Kevin Spacey’s criminally underrated Casino Jack about skeezy scammer Jack Abramoff.)

The Wolf of Wall Street, based on the true-life memoir of Belfort, is a hoot, but it’s a hard-to-recommend one. Given the prodigious nudity, drug-use, profanity, and all-out reprehensible behavior on display, I feel quite saucy exclaiming with arms outstretched, “Go see this slice of AMERICANA!” But you kinda should.

We know this crap goes on every day of every month of every year, yet we barely connect with the implications of such sordid behavior other than a few minutes reading about such an incident in a Yahoo! headline or catching a glimpse of Jon Stewart or Rachel Maddow expressing their liberal ironic disgust.

Scorsese is a manic delight as a director, and I always enjoy his overstuffed, hyperkinetic fantasias. From Mean Streets to Goodfellas to Gangs of New York to The Departed, he humanizes the gum on our collective societal shoes – those people who live in the economic undercurrent, the feisty few who flip a middle finger to ethics and morals and all things holy in their primal urge to survive … and thrive.

DiCaprio is spectacular in the title role – completely reprehensible and absolutely lovable all at once. Scorsese surrounds his muse with a marvelous supporting cast: a wonderful Jonah Hill whose epic overbite and Sally Jessy Raphael glasses do nine-tenths of his acting work as DiCaprio’s partner in materialism/drug use/bamboozling; a perfectly subdued but completely compelling Rob Reiner as DiCaprio’s complicit/fretting papa; Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin as a charmingly oily Swiss banker; and exasperated, clever, relentless everyman Kyle Chandler as the g-man who finally brings Belfort to earth again.

Surprisingly, my favorite of this sparkling cast was Matthew McConaughey (really, I just don’t like the dude). He positively runs off with the film in a totally hysterical scene early on where he describes the Faustian bargain the young DiCaprio is about to strike, entering the raucous world of stock brokering on Wall Street. McConaughey sets the loopy tone that the following three hours will follow with a gonzo Bobby McFerrin-style vocal exercise shared over a two-martini lunch with his young charge. Mad Men meets Daffy Duck. I have no other way to describe this. It has to be seen.

This is a naughty movie for those naughty enough to wink at a naughty world that is pathetically preoccupied with cash and sex and stuff. So, go be naughty.

Too funny! It’s a bit rough, and there is a LOT of nudity and pretend sex. It’s all set up like a big satirical cartoon, so it didn’t bother me. But it is still there. Might be better home viewing when you can fast-forward through stuff?

wow, roy – perhaps you were still caught up in the frenzy of it all when you wrote this? and i can take a strong hint and will go see it soon. the film sounds like eating a whole bag of oreos, great at first, really exciting, then all of a sudden there is just too much cream filling and you are looking around for a glass of milk to wash it all down. great review, and i’m quite sure it’s right on the mark.